Fort, 46, is serving a life sentence in a minimum security federal prison in Oxford, Wisconsin. Twenty years into his term, Fort is the subject of an online petition drive to reduce or commute his sentence.

Some today won’t recognize his name. But in 1993 everyone knew about Karl “Shortdog” Fort.

Daily gang-related violence on the city’s west side, 25 homicides and the shooting of a Rockford police officer pushed violent crime to record levels in 1993 in Rockford.

Winnebago County Deputy Chief Dominic Iasparro, who then headed the Rockford Police Department’s detective bureau, recalls 300 shooting victims in the city that year.

“We were getting midday shoot-outs in the middle of the street where you’d show up and there were multiple rounds being fired back and forth,” Iasparro said. “You would have one or two or three victims shot.”

Peel away the facts surrounding the 488 assaults, 682 batteries, 785 robberies and 3,995 burglaries recorded that year, and you’ll find a common theme: crack cocaine. Rival gangs were at war here over distribution of the drug, and Fort, the local leader of the Black Gangster Disciples, was widely considered the man responsible for bringing crack to Rockford.

Fort was accused of shooting a man over a pool game. He was arrested and already in jail two days before an early morning July 28, 1993, raid at the homes of Gangster Disciples. About 250 local, state and federal law enforcement agents carried out the raids — in what was dubbed the “rout at dawn” — and arrested 30 people accused of being part of the gang’s drug distribution network.

In the year after the mass arrests, 29 of the 31 defendants, including Fort, were convicted of federal offenses.

A 1993 charge of aggravated battery with a firearm was dropped by state prosecutors because the federal drug conspiracy charge carried a stiffer penalty of life in prison. That’s what sent Fort to prison in 1994.

Fast forward 20 years. A petition at change.org has gathered signatures from more than 360 people seeking to have Fort’s case reviewed. Supporters want his sentence reduced or commuted.

It’s not clear whether Fort created the petition, but one online post reportedly written by him reads:

“When I was sentenced on November 21, 1994, the sentencing guidelines were mandatory; meaning judges had very little room to exercise discretion, but today under the fair sentencing act we would not have received the mandatory life sentence. Neither crack cocaine amendments allowed relief, and none of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions have a retroactive application that allows me any relief.

“At my sentencing hearing, my judge commented that hopefully in the near future, Congress re-examine the differential of powder and crack cocaine.”

A Facebook page, Justice for Karl Fort has more than 500 likes and is asking residents to sign the petition and write a letter appealing to President Barack Obama to commute his sentence the same the way he wielded presidential powers to commute the sentence of one of Fort’s co-defendants, Reynolds Wintersmith.

‘A crack in the dam’

In December, the president commuted the sentences of Wintersmith and seven others from around the country serving what he and many others considered unjustly harsh sentences for drug crimes. The commutations were granted because the prisoners had been sentenced under a system treating convictions for crack cocaine offenses more harshly than those for powder cocaine.

Wintersmith, who was a 17-year-old nonviolent first-time offender when he was sentenced, had served 20 years before he was released in the spring.

Upon word of his commutation, his attorney, MiAngel Cody, told the Chicago Tribune, “His case has sort of put a crack in the dam for the thousands of nonviolent lifers who have been banished from society. It’s not just for Reynolds. It’s a recognition that those injustices can be corrected, and it’s not too late.”

U.S. Attorney John McKenzie of the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division, prosecuted Fort’s case in federal court in Rockford. He declined this week to comment, other than to say, “We thought the judge’s sentence was appropriate at the time.”

Iasparro said the cases of Wintersmith and Fort are different because of their levels of involvement in the drug trade.

“He was a young kid. He wasn’t in a leadership role,” Iasparro said of Wintersmith. “I understand the sentencing provisions are being looked at. ... But that’s not for the leadership of these criminal organizations. That’s for someone who might be a young person who got caught up in this. But for the most violent offenders, the federal sentencing provisions were the only thing that was able to address that significant violence that was taking place in the neighborhoods.”

Those who remember

Westside resident Patrick Mack, 50, not only remembers Fort but claims he got Fort into selling drugs as a teenager. Mack has an extensive criminal record of his own.

He said Fort had served more than enough time in prison.

“He didn’t commit no murder,” Mack said.

Fort was charged with attempted murder in 1991 for spraying a house on Chestnut Street with bullets from an Uzi. And in 1992, he was charged with felony aggravated battery with a firearm. Both cases were dismissed because of uncooperative victims and witnesses.

Mack didn’t criticize Fort for his involvement in gang violence and drug sales in the city, but he did say Fort was a young man who spent his money lavishly and selfishly.

“He had to have two cellphones, a pager, fancy clothes, $7,000 rims. He could have spent that money and started a restaurant or something and helped out some of the other people around here.”

Lawrence Blakely, 62, who’s lived on the west side for 37 years, said he had signed Wintersmith’s petition and echoed Mack’s sentiments about Fort.

“It don’t make no sense for him to get life in prison,” he said. “People murder people and get out in six or seven years.”

Seventh Ward Ald. Ann Thompson-Kelly also remembers the turbulent early 1990s in Rockford. She is uncertain whether Fort should be released or remain incarcerated.

“Is he going to come back to the community? What did he do with those 20 years in prison? What did he accomplish?” Thompson-Kelly said. “What does he plan to do when he gets out? I’ve got 100 questions.”

Iasparro vividly recalls the April 14, 1993, ambush of Rockford Police Officer Sherry Glover during the period gangs were wreaking havoc in Rockford. Glover was shot five times by Gangster Disciple Antonio “Bingo” Craig as she finished writing a police report in her squad car. Glover, who was struck once in the head by the gunfire, miraculously survived but no longer works for the Rockford Police Department.

Iasparro said the shooting was a statement to police and to the community that the Gangster Disciples had taken ownership of the area if not all of the west side.

“It was dangerous for the citizens of the community. It was dangerous for law enforcement,” Iasparro said. “Sherry nearly gave her life for this. Their intent was to kill Sherry Glover, but God allowed her to live. You could walk down the 1100 block of West State Street the night that Sherry was shot and you could feel the danger in the air.”